Apple v Samsung: Rights and Wrongs

Both Apple and Samsung are right-and wrong-and here's what I think both sides ought to do to get some sanity back into the mobile industry and the patent process.

Samsung’s documents (displayed in court) showing feature-by-feature comparisons of its unreleased S1 handset and the iPhone are shameful. Each page makes nearly explicit recommendations for aping features on which Apple has patents.

This is aggressive competition gone waaaay overboard. It is copying patented technology. You did it. You gained the lead in the smartphone market in part because you did it, and you deserve to be reined in with some sort of punishment.

We expected to see clunky no-name clones of the iPhone come out of China a month after the iPhone was released, and we did. We didn’t expect this slavish professionalized copying from Samsung.

Still, the lights stay on pretty late in Seoul where they develop some of the world’s finest chip technology, displays, batteries and much more. There are hundreds of hard working engineers in this company and they deserve their due. In becoming one of its largest customers, Apple has already paid Samsung a form of silent respect.

When this trial is over, Samsung probably owes Apple a check, though it may not be for as much as $2.5 billion. Indeed, Samsung showed some pretty compelling evidence of how the iPhone appears to infringe some of pretty broad mobile patents it owns.

Speaking of what’s owed in all this, Apple could write one to the diligent workers at Foxconn who help it amass its iFortune along with the Apple’s retail staff that reportedly works for an average of about $12 an hour.

After observing the maneuvering in a San Jose court, one thing seems clear: It’s time to put an end to this patent madness.

The concept of a tablet and most of its features is not new, it is not an innovation, etc etc.. Do we suffer from amnesia? Anyone remember PDAs? The concept was there, what we lacked was all kinds of technology improvements to make it really useful, sufficiently powerful and cool. Apple has all the right to copyright/patent a particular shape/color etc as Industrial Design did and does, but to patent "a rounded rectangle"?! Give me a break!

They already did (numerous times). They just don't sell it abroad, but so what, they have their internal market big enough ... So far we have very limited success in dealing with that angle of the problem. The solution for it will NOT come from us.

When a company has to turn to its patent attorney’s to protect its competitive advantage utilizing bogus claims in ridiculous patents it’s time to look to another leader. Apple has to realize it’s time to market and its marketing that made the product. Finally a big boy got up and said enough already.

The patent system is indeed broken. Big coorporations build up or buy (Google) large volumes of IP, which is used as ammunition in suits and countersuits against their competition, and to shut down disruptive innovation by small companies. The end customer is the biggest loser, and the biggest winners are the lawyers and executives of the corporatocracy.

patents are supposed to encourage, not stifle competition. we (people acting through government) created all forms of IP as a purely artificial mechanism to encourage progress. Apple is one of the finest examples of how to *abuse* IP - how to use patents to maximize profits by minimizing competition.
we need to reduce the domain of valid IP protection, and greatly narrow the definition of infringement. Apple has made a mockery of the IP system as it stands today. especially in light of the realities of industrial supply-chain management: no one could possibly clone an Apple product because Apple does a very good job of squeezing out efficiencies of scale, of locking up industrial capacity. remember that none of the parts in Apple products are somehow uniquely Apple - even the CPU is just a SoC built from commodity blocks.

Changing process technologies isn't as simple as checking the "32nm" box instead of the 45nm" box. There would be a non-trivial amount of design and testing for Apple to move their A5X to the 32nm process.
But even if we assume it was an option from the start, then the other problem is the delay. To advance a deadline for such a large project as deploying a new process technology by 2.5 months would be challenging if not impossible. Time is easily converted to money, but the converse is not always true.
So with that in mind, rather than be gated by Samsung's deployment of 32nm, they went with the tried-and-true 45nm process from the start. Can't say it turned out poorly for them.

I think we can all agree that its wrong for someone to blatantly steal and profit from the innovations of others. From a fundamental fairness perspective, that's just not right. But at the same time, in every business in the world, competitors size up the leader and try to take them down, often times trying to take a page from the leaders book and learn from its success. This business of a patent on the rectangle is ridiculous. I appreciate your commentary, Rick. And I wish I knew what the solution should be.